


When All Other Lights Go Out

by YukiRiikus_Reading_Room



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bonding, Bromance, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Male Friendship, Marauders, Passagge of Time, Pre-Voldemort, Tattoos, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-14
Updated: 2013-11-14
Packaged: 2018-01-01 14:27:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1045030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YukiRiikus_Reading_Room/pseuds/YukiRiikus_Reading_Room
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sirius thought it would be a good way for them to bond.  Remus couldn't understand why his friend wanted him to let someone prick him continually with a needle for the sake of Muggle physical aesthetics.  Or, the three times Sirius begged Remus to geta tattoo with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When All Other Lights Go Out

He was drunk the first time he suggested it sometime in their fifth year at Hogwarts. 

“You know, we should get tattoos together, just you and me.”  Sirius said loudly, Remus sighing wearily he dragged him down the dark corridor towards the Common Room entrance, struggling to keep his inebriated friend covered in James’s invisibility cloak as he staggered around barely keeping himself standing without the help of his arm slung over Remus’s shoulders.  “It could be a bonding thing, you know?  We’re both dogs, sort of.  Okay, you’re a wolf, but that’s close enough right?  We’re both of the canine variety.”

“Siri, I promise, you can tell me all about what tattoos are as soon as I get you to bed.”  Remus begged in a whisper, sighing when he was immediately met by a low whine from his best friend and a more pronounced slow shuffling of feet.  “I’ll put up a silencing charm up, close the curtains around your bed, and sit with you until you’re tired of talking to me, but just… be quiet until we get back to the Common Room, please?” 

“Fine Remy, whatever you want.”

Sirius passed out as soon as his head touched the pillow leaving a very confused, tired Remus to shake his head and wonder to himself as he crawled under his own covers what a tattoo even was.

The next time he brought it up, Remus had completely forgotten, especially since he rarely took the time to commit anything to memory that Sirius said to him when he was drunk. 

“Hey Moony, would you ever consider getting a tattoo with me?”   Sirius asked, looking up at Remus’s face from where he lay with his head in his friend’s lap as they sat ‘studying’ – Remus used that term with much sarcasm, generally because Sirius rarely actually brought a book to read from and often wanted Moony to read everything aloud to him – down by the lake one spring afternoon during their sixth year.  James and Peter were supposed to be with them, but recently James was spending more and more time pining after and subsequently stalking Lily Evans, Peter following him around like a particularly lecherous shadow.

“You know, you asked me that once when you were drunk last year, do you remember Padfoot?”  Remus asked, smiling in fondness and resignation when his best friend shook his head.

“Did I really?”  He asked, laughing when Remus nodded.  “That settles it, it has to be a good idea if I think it’s something we should do while drunk and sober, my drunk and sober selves rarely agree on anything.”

“I fail to see how that’s a glowing recommendation for me to get a tattoo with you.”  He grinned in spite of himself, setting aside his book to that he could give Sirius a motherly, concerned look.  “You also once said you wanted to eat Snape’s hair just to see if it tastes like Muggle fast food because I was so greasy once while you were drunk, so please, take no offense to me wanting to stay as far away from anything you wanted to do while under the influence of alcohol.  Besides, you still haven’t told me what a tattoo even is.”

“Oh, it’s a muggle thing where you prick ink into your skin with a needle to get a picture somewhere permanently on your body.”  Sirius said, laughing when Remus’s face turned white.  “What’s wrong Moony?  I thought it would be cool!”

“You want to prick me with needles?”  Remus said in a confused voice.

“No, I want a professional to do it to both of us.” 

“Siri, if you know what’s good for you, don’t ask me that again.”

Needless to say, it was another year before Sirius dared bring it up.  It was a few days before his birthday, and the pair of them where lounging around eating cauldron cakes and flipping through Muggle magazines and Witch Weekly to compare the two while they waited for James to get back from his date with Lily so that they could go out together as friends.

“Remy, have you gotten me a birthday present yet?”  Sirius asked offhandedly, glancing up at his friend out of the corner of his eye. 

“Not yet, I haven’t had a chance to go to Diagon Alley yet.  Why?  Have you decided what you want me to get you?”  He asked, finally looking up when Sirius didn’t respond right away.  “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Go with me when I get my tattoo.”  He said, holding his hands up defensively when Remus immediately rolled his eyes and started to protest.  “Look, I’m not going to ask you to get one with me again, I promise, but I don’t want to go by myself.  It’d mean a lot to me if you’d go with me to the Muggle world while I got it done, that’s all.”

“You’re really not going to try and force me into getting a tattoo?  You just want me to come with you?”  Remus said slowly, narrowing his eyes knowing this was usually the part of their conversations where Sirius found a way to rope him into something he didn’t want to go along with. 

“Yes, that’s all.  I… heard it can hurt.”  Sirius said, blushing when Remus laughed.

“Am I going to have to hold your hand?”

“Shut it, Moony.”

Neither of them commented on it when Sirius grabbed his hand as soon as the needle touched the top of his foot, his face stark white under the strange, fluorescent glow from the Muggle electric lights hanging above them.  It had taken them over an hour before Sirius would actually go inside, the pair of them standing on the doorstep as busy Muggles shoved passed them buffeting them back and forth.  Padfoot had gotten nervous on the way over, and after watching through the window for a few minutes as a girl shrieked through a shoulder tattoo, he seemed less willing to go inside and offer up his own body.  

In the end though he’d taken a deep breath, shot Remus a meaningful look he hadn’t understood, and walked inside. 

“So what are you wanting done son?”  The artist asked as he readied his equipment as Sirius pulled off a boot and sock settling down in the chair. 

“A black and white crescent moon, just there across the top.”  He said pointing to the spot.  Beside him Remus went stiff, moving into his line of sight to catch his eye.  Sirius smiled at him in response, clearly proud of himself.  “Get it Remy?  I told you I wanted it to be a bonding thing.  That way no matter where life takes up, there’s always a piece of you with me mate.”

“That’s why you wanted to get them together, isn’t it?”  Remus asked, swallowing back tears when Sirius smiled wider in response.  “Siri, do you have enough money for two?”

“Don’t joke with me Remy, I’m serious about this.”  He said with a stern look, watching in amusement as Remus started to slip off his own boot.  “I brought enough for you too in case you changed your mind, but I didn’t actually think you would…”

Looking over at the artist watching their exchange with a hint of amusement on his face, Remus took a deep breath, climbed up in the other chair, and pointed at his friend.

“I’ll have the same thing this git is having done, please.”

When James finally got home late from his date with Lily, it was to find his two best friends passed out together in a heap on his couch, both of them sporting matching smiles and bandages on their feet.  Both sheepishly tried to joke it off later when James asked them just how drunk they’d been when they had a Muggle aesthetic procedure done together, though neither of them were very convincing – and eventually, James had to admit to them that he was a little jealous they’d done it without him as he rand a finger over the delicate contours of the moon on Remy’s foot once it had healed enough that he didn’t have to cover it with bandages. 

Sitting in his cell in Azkaban years later, there were nights when the only light in Sirius’s life came from the soft, repetitive strokes of his fingers over the marking on his foot he’d had done in friendship in his younger years before everything had gone to pieces.  Though it didn’t make it all hurt less, at the very least, the light he felt glowing inside him with the memory of his best friend’s laugh was the best way he could think to fight back the darkness clamoring around him when all other lights went out. 


End file.
